rapman-education's posterous

rapman-education's posterous

Dave White  //  A place for educators, teachers, lecturers and students to find "stuff" about RapMan,BfB3000 and BfB 3DTouch printers... The unofficial Blog by Dave White, Advanced Skills Teacher and Head of D&T in Clevedon School UK.

Jan 7 / 9:18pm

Cubex A new 3D printer

P76

Introducing the new 3D printer from 3D Systems ... The Cubex (big brother to the Cube printer).
It has a huge print bed (just like its predecessor the Bits from Bytes 3D Touch). 3 colour printing and new software.

Cool!.... I'll have to start saving for one of these!

Further details from the Cubify website http://cubify.com/cubex/index.aspx?tb_cubex_learn

Filed under  //  hardware   news   printing   software  
Nov 25 / 10:49pm

New bed and waste bin

(download)

Last week I popped into BfB HQ for a chat with the guys there and noticed that the 3D Touch machines they are starting to ship had a few different parts to mine.... These updates are cool, I just had to have them!

So Friday evening saw me with Allen keys (hex key) and spanner in hand, fitting the new goodies.

The first thing I fitted was the new waste bin ... It has a new spring mounted wiper blade, it fits around the mounting bars front and back, and if you wondered why the new firmware causes the hot ends to dance around when they wipe, then here's the answer... There is a new "flicker" that removes the balls of filament that sometimes form and stick behind the blade. Fitting this update has made a real difference to printing with support material... The occasional bit of support material that inadvertently got dragged into the main part just doesn't happen!

And the other goodie I took home... The new bed! There has been some talk on the BfB forum that this is "dibond" (thin aluminium sheets on both sides with a non aluminium core). I can assure you it's NOT DIBOND! There are two layers... The bottom one is aluminium and the top is a black plastic similar, but harder than the surface on previous models.... It is absolutely flat and looks like it will stay that way! ABS and PLA both stick well and as the surface seems to be a bit harder it doesn't scratch or show marks from the raft as much as the previous ones did. I did a couple of quite large raftless PLA prints, they stuck well and came out really smooth (If you try it you do so at your own risk) I found that getting them off the bed when still warm was perhaps a little easier.

Anyway, both of these new parts are a great addition to the 3D Touch. It looks like new machines will start to ship with these soon and I think they will appear in the BfB store shortly.

Filed under  //  hardware  
Oct 17 / 10:08pm

Upgrade for our trusty workhorse 3D printer

File

I can't even contemplate how many prints have been done on our trusty workhorse 3D printer in school. Our BfB3000 has done so many prints that I've had to flip over the acrylic bed AND replace it a couple of times... So time for an upgrade to the newer black composite bed. I've been using one of these for nearly a year on my personal 3D Touch with no problems, they really are superb!

But that's not the end of the upgrades... After 2 years of constant use the OLED display started acting up and started to display random characters. I had come across this before on our ancient RapMan 3.0 and it is probably due to dodgy connections to the pcb ...the atmosphere in my workshop is far from ideal, temperatures fluctuate and it can get a bit damp, not exactly ideal conditions for the electronics. So it's also time for a screen replacement.

Having received the screen kit from Bits from Bytes it was only a simple matter of removing the old screen, a couple of solder joints and a new front panel for the control box... Pretty easy really! ... Just don't forget the firmware upgrade too!

So, our BfB3000 has a new lease of life and I have the added benefit of a bigger screen (old age does seem to bring diminishing quality of eyesight). I'll just have to finish the final set up tomorrow (bed levelling and z height) and we'll be fully up and running again.

So....Looking forwards to another couple of years printing with our trusty BfB printer!

Filed under  //  hardware  
Aug 18 / 9:32pm

3D Printing for Microcontrollers

(download)

One of the things I have been intending to do this year is to look at updating the 'systems and control' work that we do with students in year 8. We have been using the "Picaxe" micro controllers but with the developments that have been going on I decided that we might need to look at Arduino and Raspberry Pi. Both of these systems cost considerably more than Picaxe so before doing some experimenting with students I thought that it might be good to put the boards in some kind of container.

So I found a lovely printable Raspberry Pi case on Thingiverse and printed it in nice shiny red PLA. As you can see in the pictures it came out very well.... But what about Arduino? I couldn't find anything suitable so I fired up my PC and using Creo2 designed my own, again in lovely red PLA.

Well, so far so good... Now to get down to learning how to program!

 

Filed under  //  education   hardware   printing  
Aug 7 / 4:37pm

Claystruder 2

(download)

Back in 2011 I had the pleasure of meeting up with Dries Verbruggen aka "Unfold" when he visited Bits from Bytes HQ. I had a great time with Unfold showing me his Claystruder for 3D printing with clay, mashed potato and chocolate paste. Using his claystruder and a RapMan machine he produced some lovely clay pots that could probably not be produced by any other pottery/ceramics technique.

Anyway, Unfold has been at it again... And has updated his claystruder. I'm now just wondering what wonderful ceramic designs he will come up with next?

The design for his claystruder has been uploaded to thingiverse where you can find more details, or why not visit his blog here http://unfoldfab.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/road-to-better-paste-extrusion-episode.html

And to see some more of his fantastic ceramic creations check them out here http://unfoldfab.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/print-print-print.html

Note. Photos are from Unfold's blog/website http://www.unfold.be by Kristof Vrancken

Filed under  //  hardware   printing  
May 19 / 12:04pm

Unplugged... iPad stand

(download)

Over the last week I have been introducing students to some iPad apps for 3D printing and laser cutting. To do this effectively I have been using our digital projector and a VGA to Apple dock connector cable (unfortunately I don't have access to apple tv) ... But it became more and more frustrating when the iPad moved on the table and the dock connector kept falling out... Note to self, I must get a longer VGA cable! But in the meantime I need another solution. So that's why I've 3D printed a stand for my iPad. Maybe that will give me a more stable platform to work from and help prevent the cable from being pulled out... I'll give it a try next week!

Being in a bit of a rush to get things done I didn't have time to design the stand myself so after a browse on Thingiverse I found this one ... So thanks to "Hobie" whose design can be found at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing23225

 

Filed under  //  dt   hardware   printing  
Feb 20 / 3:47pm

Support material removal revisited

Before reading this post It might be worth reading a blog entry that I made back in January 2011 http://rapman-education.posterous.com/safe-support-material-removal-that-really-wor

In that post I revealed that PLA support material can be removed from an ABS printed object using hot water (or for a quicker but riskier result you can use caustic soda NaOH). The hot water method requires the object is kept in hot water for 36 to 48 hours.... But this is a little difficult to do. Help is at hand though as 3D Systems Bits from Bytes now supplies ultrasonic tanks that will contain the liquid and keep it hot.

These might seem a little pricy but certainly In schools where safety is so important it's a worthwhile investment if you regularly print with PLA support material.

3D Systems Bits from Bytes have just released a video on YouTube that shows you how it's done.

 

Filed under  //  hardware   printing   video  
Jan 1 / 8:35pm

More 3D printing in colour

(download)

Now having easy access to a 3 head BfB 3D Touch printer I really couldn't resist doing some colour printing for myself. But where to start? Well perhaps nowhere better than the lovely globe by "m6mafia" http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11660 and previously printed by the guys at BfB. The only problem was that Axon requires 3 stl files - one for each colour and a combined file... But I only found the files for each colour! So after a bit of a tussle with Meshlab and Netfabb I was on the point of giving up when I remembered that I could import the 2 stl files into Creo Elements/Pro as an assembly and then export the combined file... Success!!! 
Unfortunately I don't have any blue PLA, so green for the land and transparent for the water would have to do. I suppose the final result doesn't look too bad.
I can't wait to get back to school next week to show the Geography teachers... Hope they're impressed!
Filed under  //  hardware   printing  
Dec 23 / 9:42pm

Santa came a little early

(download)

Santa came a little early this year, bringing a lovely triple head BfB 3D Touch.
Anyway, It's all set up and working ... Ok so a couple of days early, anyway it's too big for wrapping paper and it had to be tried out and tested (good excuse eh?) And what better way of testing it than to do my first 3 material print, which of course had to be a Christmas themed coaster from the BfB advent calendar of free downloadable stl files.
Of course I shouldn't forget to say a huge thank you to Santa's elves at BfB for all their help and support throughout the year.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.
Dave
 
Filed under  //  hardware   printing  
Dec 14 / 9:16pm

Worlds smallest 3D printer

Ok so we have a RapMan and BfB 3000 printer in school... And I'm really pleased with them and what they can do.... But this is really impressive... The worlds smallest 3D printer!
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/klaus_stadlmann_the_world_s_smallest_3d_printer.html
Wonder how I can get my hands on one of these?
Filed under  //  article   hardware   printing   video